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There was a short period of my early life that was punctuated by truly unfortunate nightmares. I'd go to sleep feeling safe and warm.

Then I'd awaken several hours later and somehow be completely convinced that my closet was inhabited by fire monsters.

I'd flee to my parents' room because, like most six-year-olds, I believed that my parents possessed some magical ability to ward off homicidal, fire-breathing monsters that were easily eight times their size.

I don't know exactly how I thought they would be able to protect me from the monster, but as far as I was concerned, my parents were forcefields of safety and that fire monster could go fuck itself.

As I lay there between my parents, I felt a gigantic flood of relief.

Inexplicably, the feeling of complete immunity to danger made me extremely energetic.

I didn't need sleep; all I needed was safety.

It was intoxicating.

And in the morning, despite having slept very little, I'd wake up feeling recharged and ready to rampage.

Unfortunately, my parents were not high out of their minds on feelings of invulnerability, and they did need sleep.

After enduring several consecutive nights of spastic flailing followed by days of gleeful chaos, my parents decided that they needed to take action.

My mother, being the shrewd diplomat that she was, decided to bribe me into staying in my own bed at night. She knew that I had been lusting after a certain stuffed toy, and told me that if I stayed in my own room every night for an entire week, she'd buy the toy for me.

But the promise of such an enticing reward did not make the nightmares go away. Nighttime turned into a battle of will power. I would awaken, become completely terrified and be overwhelmed with the desire to bolt to the safety of my parents' room. But I willed myself to stay in my bed. Instead of sleeping, I spent the entire night vigilantly watching the closet.

If a monster came out and tried to attack me, I was prepared to flee reflexively. But until I saw the whites of the monster's eyes, I would hold my post.

I really, really wanted that toy.

My sleepless nights turned me into a listless little zombie during the day. Activities that I once enjoyed with childish abandon became a struggle.

I was completely dead inside.

But the most insulting part of the whole ordeal was lying awake in my bed, shaking with terror and suddenly becoming aware of my younger sister slumbering peacefully on the other side of the room, wrapped up in her blanket like a fearless little burrito.

She was three years old. There was no possible way that she should be so brave in the face of such extreme danger. I looked at her over there, happily dreaming her little dreams, and I felt envy. I should be the brave one. I should be the one defying death so nonchalantly. Who the hell did she think she was?

Not only did she sleep soundly but she awakened cheerfully, ready to take on whatever daily challenges a three-year-old is likely to face. The numbness and deadness I felt inside contrasted sharply with her blatant contentedness. It started to feel like she was being happy at me - like her enthusiasm was intentional and malicious.

Then I had an idea.

I could bring her down to my level. I could fill her little mind with images so gruesome that she'd be irreversibly scarred for life and would no longer be able to taunt me with her complete disregard of fear.

And most importantly, if I could make her scared enough to seek refuge in my parents' bed, I could use her as a sort of Trojan horse and tag along under the guise of concern.

She was my ticket to safety and I had to scare the ever-living fuck out of her.

I spent the entire day concocting the most horrifying story I could think of - an amalgamation of every single scary thing I'd ever heard. It was a masterpiece. It was the scariest story in the world. There was no possible way that my sister would walk away unscathed.

When it was finally bedtime, I waited for my parents to turn off the lights and leave the room, then I turned to my sister and said "Do you want to hear a story?"

She loved stories. She didn't see it coming.

I began: "On a dark and stormy night....

By the time I was done weaving my tale of blood and horror and more blood, my sister had become silent and wide-eyed. Her innocent little brain had never encountered such an impressive amount of gore, and I could tell that she was still struggling to process it all.

Satisfied with my handiwork, I whispered "goodnight" and nestled into my blankets to wait for the inevitable moment when her tender young mind crumpled beneath the sheer volume of terror I'd just injected into it.

Amazingly, my sister was able to fall asleep. She couldn't possibly have been unaffected. How could she sleep? She must be experiencing a delayed reaction, I thought. The inside of her head just had to be a festering stew of terrors - fermenting, bubbling beneath the surface until they gathered enough force to wake her and propel her to the safety of my parents' bedroom. It had to happen. There was no way that it wouldn't.

As I lay there in the dark, willing my sister to awaken and experience the full force of the nightmares I'd planted in her mind, I began to think about the story I'd told her. The bear-snake with bat-arms. The skeletons. The blood. The murderers.

Then I looked at my closet.

Oh no. They were in there.

The jolt of fear I felt in my spine nearly paralyzed me, but I still managed to flee to my parents' room with tremendous agility. I desperately clawed at their door until they let me in.

I told them I didn't care about the toy. I told them I never wanted toys ever again. I cried violently and screamed about how scared I was.

Even the impenetrable safety-fortress of my parents' sleeping bodies was not enough to ward off the incredible amount of fear I'd brought upon myself. I didn't sleep. And it wasn't because I was high on safety.

In the morning, I felt like I'd aged ninety years in a single night. This is it, I thought. This is what the end of life feels like. My tiny adrenal glands had nearly exploded themselves in my panic and I was exhausted. I ate my cereal robotically, expending only as much energy as necessary.

I almost didn't notice when my sister climbed up next to me.

She looked much less traumatized than I would have expected, considering that she spent all night stewing in the after-effects of my story. In fact, she seemed extremely excited about absolutely nothing.

Maybe I had broken her. Maybe this was how she was choosing to cope with the indelible horrors I'd etched in her psyche.

But no.

She was not only unfazed by the story - it had awakened a hunger in her. She experienced the scariest story in the world and she loved it. And she would not be content until she had mined my brain for every terrifying snippet it was capable of producing. I had to make up more stories to tell her. Scarier stories. Stories with more blood. Everything became a potential subject for a story. Tell me one about lawn mowers, she'd say. And I'd have to come up with a story about a sentient, homicidal lawn mower.

I have to admit, this one went in a direction I totally did not expect... and I loved it. I remember having similar nightmares and braving the dark so as not to let my parents think I was afraid of possibly-non-existent monsters. I would have given in an huddled with them, but they both snored. Like chainsaws.

My brother was just like your sister. Nothing scared him and he could sleep anywhere, even standing up. Meanwhile, my overactive little brain and raging insomnia turned me into a total zombie. I would purposely wake him up to stay awake with me when I was scared, but he never lasted more than 30 seconds. I feel for ya, Allie.

My sister tried the exact same thing you did... only it worked. Every night we would go to bed in our shared room... and every night she would randomly start whimpering and choking and calling for help. I would rush over to her bed because I was like, 5/6 and didn't want my older sister to die because i idolized her, etc. and she would hold the covers down around herself so tightly that i couldn't get in, and she'd scream that "donny" was choking her, and she would do this until i started sobbing and then she'd say he went away and everything was all better and she'd comfort me... then i'd go back to my own bed, get all comfortable and ready to sleep, and she'd start it again. This would happen a few times per night.

My sister never bothered to tell me a STORY, but she did hide under my bed in 1978 and grab my ankles when I went to climb in. Its okay, though; I only looked under the bed before I turned out the light every night until my senior year of college.

A really cute monster,though! This reminds me of how I wanted my sister to pee in the bed so badly because she was FOUR years younger than me! She always drank an above-ground pool-sized glass of water, went to bed & woke up as dry as a desert. Me? I was sitting in Pee Lake. Thanks for making me remember this!

I was the innocent younger one, and my older sister was horrible to me ALL DAY. But then night came, and she told me (very sweetly) that if I was too scared of hermit crabs (my personal childhood horror) I could sleep in her bed if I wanted.

Years later, she confessed that she only opened her bed to me so that I could be her human shield and bait if something happened.

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I took great pride in scaring my sisters while growing up. I have scarred my middle sister so much that my brother in law reminds me each time I see him, how he has to sleep with a night light on despite the fact that he is a Navy veteran and currently works for homeland security. Who knew using 1963's, The Haunting, a wolf mask and a sheet could produce such fits of terror years later?! Genius. It was pure genius.

Hehehe, so cute! My brother would scare the crap out of me just before bed too, but my oldest sister came up with the ingenious invention of the "Monster Beeper (tm)". She installed it under my bed (I couldn't be there for the installation of course) and it would beep if any monsters came near, so as long as there was no noise, I must be safe. I slept rather soundly after that.

When I was little I placed my favorite teddy bear on my pillow by my head as a guardian, and if I ever had to get out of bed I jumped off to the monster underneath couldn't grab my legs and drag my under. And my nightmares consisted of endless kittens...kittens everywhere...I couldn't breathe there were so many furry kittens. Overactive imaginations are torture on parents.

Lmao that's too funny! I used to scare my brother all the time when I was little because I was hyper-aware of the existence of serial killers. The best story included cannibals living in the mountains on the way to florida. They feasted on travelers that stayed in secluded hotels, just like the one we ended up staying at. After that I wasn't allowed to tell stories after 8pm XD

I loved your story.. (my 11-yr old son thinks you're pretty hysterical too). In any case, I started reading with the anticipation of finding out how your parents finally got you to sleep in your own bed. I have a 2yr old that refuses to sleep in her own bed at night, but I'm afraid that the, um, bedtime story with blood will probably hinder any progress, lol. Great work, keep it up. Looking forward to the next one!

When I was younger the same thing always happened. Sleep became something I feared and dreaded. I remember watching a clip from "The Nightmare on Elm Street" when I was in the 4th grade. It was the scene where Johnny Depp was swallowed by his bed. That was all it took. For months I became terrified of my own bed. My OWN fucking bed. Eventually I just learned to sleep with a knife. The End

-->My older brother and sister did the opposite because while I was in grade school and they were supposed to be watching me, they convinced me the dogs could protect me from anything and then leave me home alone. Jerks.

sister is the same way! ha. she loves scary stories and movies and she is 7 years younger than i. i would whimper in fear when she wanted to watch i know what you did last summer and such. great post! <3 meg@ http://myscribblednotebook.blogspot.com/

Freakin' hysterical! My son used to have nightmares like that. He had some weird fear of alligators. Finally I took a bottle of lavender pillow spray, emptied and washed it out, filled it with water and re-labeled it "Gator Spray." For the longest time I had to spray for gators in his room.

Another wonderful post! (in a sad, creepy way, since the story you told your little sister was truly awful and since I'm a younger sister and baby of the family...shame, shame on you...lol, but then again -- she apparently liked horror, so I guess good job in entertaining her! But sad because I feel bad that you had horrible nightmares as a child!) That was totally a run-on sentence....forgive me! I remember being scared at night, but I don't think I ever ran to my parents....I just curled into a tiny, tiny ball and hoped the monster wouldn't get me. It might have something to do with the fact that I had a waterbed growing up so my monster lived under my headboard. I was convinced it would grab me if I set one toe on the floor, lol.

My older brother and sister did the opposite and told me the dogs could protect me at all times. This way, they could leave me home alone when I was in grade school and they went out partying as high school students. Jerks.

I'm so incredibly happy right now that I never had to share a bedroom with my older brother, because he totally would've done something like this to me, even though I've always had way more sleep problems than him.

(And I wouldn't have reacted like your sister; I would've been sleeping in my parents bed till my teen years)

My older sister did the SAME THING TO ME! She told me that my My-Size Barbie was really a demon that cried blood at night and would (conveniently) murder me if I told mom and dad. I retold this story as part of my Maid of Honor speech at her wedding and everyone thought it was hysterical. Wasn't so funny when I was 6, though.

I have a distinct memory from when I was younger of having some sort of nightmare, and then going into my parents' room to sleep with them, but they were already sleeping, and I didn't want to wake them up because they made scary noises when they woke up and I didn't want to be scared any more, so I just camped out on the floor by their bed. I was an odd child.

I was totally scared of what might be under my bed. Only I was so scared I used the fearless little burrito wrap to keep my entire body in the center ofthe twin bed because my sister and I slept in the basement and I would of had to make my way all the way threw the basement up the stairs and to the other side of the dark house to get to my parents. Still today if I wake up and find a hand has fallen over the edge of the bed I quick pull it back before what ever is under the bed gets me. Then I snuggle up to Husband, who has no idea his slumber protects me. Because we all know White Dog and Brown Dog are too sound of sleepers to save me! Love your posts!

Why are grown folks still excited to write "FIRST"? I mean, we are in 2011, for Pete's sake. #weoffthat.Anywho, great story. I've already hit you up on Twitter. But I'll mention it again - you are a fantastic writer. Keep it up!

I know I'm not the first to say it, but the "little burrito" was absolutely brilliant. Have learned not to read your posts while in class. During serious discussions. People look at you funny when you laugh.

As a university student living in a co-op house I was part of a very special Halloween. We decorated the house and had a vampire asleep in a coffin, and a ghost, and a mummy that would move when the children tried to touch it, and made the children come into the haunted house before we would give them candy. (I suppose we would be arrested in this day and age.)

One very small boy of about four kept dragging his Dad back to our house, bursting through the front door and announcing loudly and cheerfully (spoiling the mood for the other children) "Spook me more!"

I laughed out loud in the middle of McAlister's at the bat-armed bear-snake. The old people who have taken over the 7 tables next to me gave me mean looks. I guess my laughter screws with pacemakers or something. I love this post, keep up the stellar work!

My older brother MADE me go to see "Poltergeist" at the movies with him. He had already seen it and said it wasn't scary. HOLY SHIT. That movie *never* should have been rated PG. I'm now 40 and the bodies in the just-dug swimming pool can still keep me up at night.Thanks a lot (alot!) older siblings from hell!<3

*Gigglesnort* This reminds me of my nightmares. Only I was like 12. And my mother would not let me sleep with her. She believed that if she did, that would tell me that there was something to be afraid of. So there was a month long period where I was sleeping with the light on, and still only getting a couple hours. It sucked.

Another fantastic post! Love the story, the writing, the drawings. I can also relate except the person who told me scary stories was my Dad and I still haven't forgiven him yet. Thanks for another wonderful blog! <3

I can really identify with this. The unexplained fears (in my case, a fear of alien abduction that went on from age 6 until age 14), the sleepless nights, the zombie feeling the next day... and the insanely perky well-rested unfaze-able little sister.

I'd lay in bed, frozen with fear, sure the doorknob to my closet was turning ever-so-slightly. I'd strain and stare at it; was it turning or wasn't it? It was...no, wait...maybe not.

Monsters trying to get out.

Sometimes I'd find the unbelievable courage and guts to run over and open the closet door, so that way, I wouldn't be obsessed about the doorknob turning, then run back to bed, throwing myself under the blankets, terrified the monsters were going to follow me.

But no! I was spared!

Then as I lay there, the open, black maw of the closet seemed to be filled with unknown horrors. Was that something moving? In the back? Was that a rustle I heard?

Blackness. But wait, something moved...

GAHHHH!

Run to parent's room, climb in bed between them. Then, at some point in the wee hours of the morning, I'd wet their bed.

And, NO, I didn't grow up to be a serial killer. *sighs* Honestly, you can't mention wetting the bed as a small child these days without fending off questions about setting small animals on fire or whatever. Sheesh

I had a very similar closet fear, but instead of fire monsters, it was Darth Vader. I'd have nightmares where he'd put me in jars. I have no idea why, but I also had a recurring nightmare about alphabetic animals.

Omg, I did this with my brother and cousin. I made up these giant homicidal shadow stick-figures called Johnnies, and I had us all convinced that they lived upstairs in our grandmother's house. Took us years to stop believing in them.

This is where I'd really like to just put out an all caps huge "HAHAHAHAHA" that goes on for as long as my actual laughter did, but that seems wrong. Instead, I have explained what I would like to do and hope you appreciate the full gravity of my appreciation of your amusingness.

I still do this and I'm fourteen. I've developed a horror movie fascination (read: me watching random summaries on YouTube and looking them up on Wikipedia) and now my favorite movie of all time is Psycho. I didn't shower for a week until my mom said, "Go upstairs, lock the door, turn on all the lights and take an effing shower or I'll hire Anthony Perkins to follow you at night."

Ok, maybe that's not exactly what she said, but I ended up taking a shower. I refuse to shower at motels.

I had a recurring nightmare as a young child that my mattress was full of bugs, and it would rip open and the bugs would come pouring out... I would be out of that bed and into my parents' room so fast I swear my feet didn't even touch the ground. But my dad solved it after a few occurrences by taking my toy dinosaur and making it put its head under my blanket and roar - thus scaring all the bugs too much for them to come out again :D

My own terror didn't stop me from scarring my little brother for life - I told him that there was a monster in the toilets in our house and he couldn't use the toilet at home for about 6 months XD

Good story. Can't help but feel like you're prepping for a book, though. I miss the frequent posts (even those with no illustrations are funny!) Please try to keep us updated more often... we MISS YOU!!

Ahh, my neighbor did this to herself while we waited for the movie to start at the drive-in theater. my mom's boyfreind and my neighbor made up a story about the ghost of the drive-in who died in the 1800s when she was run over by a carriage on the opening night of the drive-in. (nevermind that they didn't really exist until the '50s). she was terrified for months afterwards.

(and, no, I'm not very old, I'm just lucky to still have a drive-in near me. and I pity those of you who don't)

I think maybe the whole bribing with buying a toy after one week of sleeping in you own bed is in the parent manual they hand out with new babies. My parents did the same thing. Only, it was a teddy bear we bought my friend for her birthday. But then I decided I wanted it more than I liked my friend. So my mother used my little self's selfishness to her advantage and told me I could have it if I stayed in my own bed for a week. And I did. And I still have that teddy bear. It's somewhere in the depths of my closet.

Oh my gosh, this post is oodles of hilariousness. I would love it if you made shirts/sweatshirts of these illustrations "They're bad because they are murderers." and "And they’re all really fast." I would buy the shitt out of them.<3

I have the worst imagination in the world. And I am 19 years old. And I love scary movies and shows. In other words, I've shot myself in the foot. As of recent, I spent the weekend with my boyfriend and he decided to show me an episode of Doctor Who called Blink. It's about these Weeping Angels who basically want to kill you, but they send you into the past to kill you. If you look at them, they won't move, but when you're not looking, they turn into these evil assassins who can move in the blink of an eye. They don't look scary when they are "weeping" but they are terrifying when their hands aren't over their eyes. Oh, and they also can't look at each other. So if there are three weeping angels together, one can look around as much as he'd like, but the others have to cover their eyes. My house doesn't have any angels, weeping or not, in the house, but I think 'oh man... they might be in the closet! They might jump out from the dark shadows and EAT ME!' Of course, this didn't stop me from watching Doctor Who, so my mind is filled with all these horrible creatures that are out to get me even though they aren't real.

And mirrors. Oh, my ex scared me when he was talking about mirrors. Saying how in the hours before dawn, you don't know what can be lurking around mirrors and how they can show you some creepy things. He said he was staring into a mirror around 4 AM and there was a flash and his face wasn't his face any more. It was disfigured and awful. There were more details, but I block them out. I refuse to look in a mirror between the hours of 3 AM - 5 AM now.

" It started to feel like she was being happy at me - like her enthusiasm was intentional and malicious."this is how i felt about my old roommate. 5 months into living with her, we found out she hadn't been paying her half of the rent and had been happily taking all the cash we gave her for bills and not paying any bills either. check to see if your sister was stealing thousands of dollars from you.

I sincerely wish that I had thought to do something similar to my little sister. She's five years younger than my twin and me so when she was three we would have been plenty old enough to come up with scary stories. Instead, we just ignored her while she played on the swing on our porch and sang the "Go" song.

you are awesome and that is all i have to say about that ;)glad that you found a creative way to reach out to the masses and i hope you can make a shit ton of $ off of it in the near future. maybe you can be on 30 rock or something!in the interim.. i invite you to read my dating tragedies. http://beantownsocialite.commuch <3 and prosperity@kris10haley

I *also* love getting to appear intellectually superior to my friends on FB for posting your links -- allows me to be all like "oh, I TOTES watch this blog like a squirrel on crack -- cuz I have my finger on the pulse of the web donchaknow?"

I'm a 34 year old woman. I went to get my taxes done last week and was wearing one of your Ahm A Nadle tshirts. The receptionist, who was a good ten years older, recognized my shirt from your blog. Ha! Just thought you'd get a kick out of that.